How to Prepare for Pastırma Sıcakları, Turkey's Autumn Heat Wave

Each autumn, after the first cool days of the season, Turkey typically sees a return of warm, calm, sunny weather known as "pastırma sıcakları." According to Hürriyet and Cumhuriyet, meteorologists generally place this period in the final week of October through the first half of November, running until around 15 November, though the exact dates are not fixed from year to year.

What Causes the Warm Spell

The phenomenon is linked to a high-pressure system sitting over the region, under clear skies and light wind. Sabah's 2026 coverage describes it as the result of sinking air created once polar-origin low-pressure centres withdraw: the descending air mass warms as it compresses, which also suppresses cloud formation and lets daytime sunlight reach the ground almost unobstructed.

Because skies stay clear at night as well, heat escapes quickly after sunset. Hürriyet notes that this produces the spell's signature pattern: jacket-shedding warmth at midday alongside sharp, sometimes frosty cooling after dark.

Why It Is Called Pastırma Sıcakları

The name comes from traditional pastırma (cured beef) production. Hürriyet explains that makers historically relied on exactly this combination — warm, dry, sunny days paired with cold nights — to dry and cure meat outdoors, since the daytime warmth dries it while the nightly cold hardens it. The roughly week-long balance of conditions became associated with the curing season, giving the weather pattern its name.

2026 Timing: What Different Forecasts Say

Turkish outlets drawing on meteorological sources largely agree on the broad window but differ on this year's specifics, as the table below shows.

Sözcü's early-October report, describing daytime highs up to 33°C on the southern coast around Antalya and Adana against around 23°C in Trabzon and Rize and 17°C in Erzurum and Kars further north and inland, illustrates that warm spells above seasonal norms can also appear as a prelude before the main pastırma period analysts place later in the autumn.

How to Prepare: Step by Step

1. Mark the likely window on your calendar: outlets citing meteorological forecasts place the main pastırma sıcakları period in the last week of October through mid-November, with each warm stretch typically lasting three to ten days.
2. Keep coats and umbrellas within reach rather than packing them away: Sözcü's coverage of an early-October warm spell notes that cooler, wetter weather can return within days once the high-pressure system moves on.
3. Check regional expectations before dressing: southern coastal areas such as Antalya and Adana can see daytime highs around 33°C during these spells, while northern areas such as Trabzon and Rize stay closer to 23°C, and inland areas such as Erzurum and Kars can be as cool as 17°C, per Sözcü.
4. Dress in layers using cotton fabrics: Prof. Dr. Alper Şener, an infectious diseases specialist at İzmir Katip Çelebi University quoted by Anadolu Agency, recommends layering so a garment can be removed as midday warms up, and favouring cotton over synthetic fabrics that interfere with the body's heat balance.
5. Watch for flu-like symptoms as temperatures swing: Şener told Anadolu Agency that the hot-cold imbalance may bring on a last bout of flu or upper respiratory infection for the season, and that fever with muscle or joint pain points to a viral infection rather than allergy.
6. Take general pollen precautions on warm, dry, windy days: Turkey's State Meteorological Service (MGM) advises closing windows and doors, using air conditioning with pollen filters, and limiting outdoor activity during the warmest, driest, windiest hours, since such conditions raise airborne pollen levels.
7. Treat the warm snap as temporary, not a return of summer: the practice that gave pastırma sıcakları its name — curing meat outdoors in exactly these conditions — exists because the dry warmth and cold nights are a short-lived balance before winter weather sets in, according to Hürriyet.

Health Precautions During the Temperature Swings

Anadolu Agency reported that rapid shifts between warm and cold air raise the risk of flu and upper respiratory infections, citing a case in İzmir where temperatures fell from over 30°C to 9°C within days. Şener said children and elderly people, who may struggle to adjust their clothing to fast-changing conditions, are particularly at risk, and that in older patients a viral infection can progress from the upper to the lower respiratory tract.

MGM's general guidance on weather and allergies adds that warm, dry and windy days increase pollen in the air, which can aggravate symptoms in people with asthma or chronic lung conditions during the same period.